Episodes
Sunday Sep 22, 2024
Episode 375: Packaging Design
Sunday Sep 22, 2024
Sunday Sep 22, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Taylor Hubler and Nicholas Ambrose
Join our experts for a conversation looking at how to physically design, package, and ship games. We want to make sure that every copy that is printed makes it into the hands of a player, but games can get damaged in transit, or be passed up by game stores due to a physical design misstep. Part one will be going over physical design, layout considerations, and what retailers like to see in a product on their shelves. Part two will be going over why product gets damaged in transit, best packaging practices for distribution, and how avant garde physical design can make shipping difficult. Q and A, as well as workshop elements will be present in this panel.
Saturday Aug 31, 2024
Episode 374: Designing for Retail
Saturday Aug 31, 2024
Saturday Aug 31, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2024
Presented by Avonelle Wing and Nicholas Ambrose
So, what is "the three-tier system"? What's a consolidator? Hobby? Mass-market? Specialty? Once you have a design that seems viable, there are a lot of steps between here and retail success. Bring your questions, and we'll try to answer them after a brief overview of possible paths forward.
Monday Jun 24, 2024
Episode 373: That's Great Advice, Don't Follow It
Monday Jun 24, 2024
Monday Jun 24, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Avonelle Wing, Curt Covert, and Alex Cutler
You've read game design blogs and Facebook groups. You've delved into conventional wisdom. You did your homework. A game should be replayable. You should set your funding goal as 1/5 of your overall costs to fund fast. A prototype should be a single sheet of paper and some markers. A prototype needs to be full production value. Publish it yourself and sell it out of your bedroom; order fulfillment is easy. All of these things might be true, and they could still be the thing that sinks your ship. Our experts talk about the ways accurate advice can still be wrong for you.
Friday May 31, 2024
Episode 372: Powered by the Apocalypse
Friday May 31, 2024
Friday May 31, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Meguey Baker, Vincent Baker
An introduction to PbtA from a designer's point of view. How and why Apocalypse World works the way it does, what your game can take from it, and how and why your own game should work differently. Highlighting PbtA's conversation model, with an emphasis on consent and communication, and PbtA's model of fiction, with an emphasis on adapting it to your own game's needs.
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
Episode 371: Adapting Someone Else's Sandbox
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
Thursday Apr 18, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Cam Banks and Amanda Valentine
Licensed RPGs are a minefield of conflicting interests, stakeholders, and opinions. With the assumption that you've done the hardest part of securing a license, actually designing, developing, and producing the game is often much harder than expected. We'll talk about the process of faithfully adapting someone else's work to a new game project.
Saturday Apr 06, 2024
Episode 370: Ten Things Wrong With Your Game
Saturday Apr 06, 2024
Saturday Apr 06, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Sydney Engelstein and Geoffrey Engelstein
Sydney has taken close to a thousand pitches for Indie Game Studios. Geoff has taught game design and helped designers improve their prototypes for over a decade. Between them they see the same issues with designs over and over again, particularly with newer designers. In this seminar, they will share with you the top things that are wrong with your game, based on this hard won experience. They guess there's a slight chance you've avoided a few of these issues, but probably not. And let's face it - you won't know unless you attend.
NOTE: An insufficiently edited version of this panel was posted earlier, but this is the corrected version for your enjoyment.
Sunday Mar 10, 2024
Episode 369: Indie Publishing for the Long Haul
Sunday Mar 10, 2024
Sunday Mar 10, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Meguey Baker and Vincent Baker
We've been creating and publishing our own games for almost 25 years. How, why, and what does it take? Why self-publish instead of shopping your work around? How do you plot your own course, build your own audience, and measure your own success? This is about being you, the designer, making your games, owning the fruits of your labor, and keeping both your drive and your passion while holding down your day job and maintaining your relationships.
Sunday Feb 25, 2024
Episode 368: Printing Your RPG
Sunday Feb 25, 2024
Sunday Feb 25, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Jason Pitre
Producing books is a challenge at the best of times, and the printing landscape has changed radically since the pandemic. The panel speakers will explain the process for finding companies to work with you, choosing your print specifications, and other secrets of the trade.
Sunday Feb 11, 2024
Episode 367: Staying In
Sunday Feb 11, 2024
Sunday Feb 11, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Cam Banks and Amanda Valentine
You've had a successful Kickstarter, you've been hired by a game publisher, you've released your work on Itch or DriveThru. You've done it! But now what? We're here to discuss the aftermath, the fallout, and how to survive that and stay doing what you love to do.
Sunday Feb 04, 2024
Episode 366: Teaching How to GM
Sunday Feb 04, 2024
Sunday Feb 04, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Bill White and Avery Rosen
This panel discusses the theoretical, pedagogical, and practical implications of trying to teach people to run tabletop RPGs as GMs. We're interested in understanding the best practices, the pitfalls, and the contexts in which "teaching people to GM" in any kind of formal way is even possible. We survey the role-playing landscape in order to understand how the technological and cultural shifts of recent years have affected the way people learn to run games.
Saturday Jan 27, 2024
Episode 365: Narrative Voice in RPGs
Saturday Jan 27, 2024
Saturday Jan 27, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Jay Dragon and Amanda Valentine
Every game has a voice, from the biggest trad book to an indie zine, and this narrative voice helps a game teach itself and stand on its own. In this round table held by award-winning game designer Jay Dragon we'll talk through a number of examples of games that utilize narrative voice to articulate their game-worlds, and rewrite our own mechanics in ways that emphasize how different perspectives can change the nature of the game on a deep level.
Saturday Jan 20, 2024
Episode 364: Why you Should Join the IGDN
Saturday Jan 20, 2024
Saturday Jan 20, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Tristan Zimmerman, Meghan Jaffe, Sean Jaffe
The Indie Game Developer Network (IGDN) is an all-volunteer trade association for tabletop publishers, designers, and freelancers. We offer booth space at conventions, share knowledge, and work to improve the industry. Come ask questions and learn whether the IGDN might be right for you!
Sunday Jan 14, 2024
Episode 363: Budgeting for Art
Sunday Jan 14, 2024
Sunday Jan 14, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Jack Parra, Lissane Lake, Nicole Amato
Getting high-quality art is key to making a product look professional. Our panel makes with the tips and tricks to controlling costs and Funding the Project.
Saturday Jan 06, 2024
Episode 362: How to Work with Artists
Saturday Jan 06, 2024
Saturday Jan 06, 2024
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Jack Parra and Lissane Lake
The panelists will touch on the process of how to find and approach artists, negotiate the contract, and then successfully work together. It's important that publishers get an artist's-eye-view of things so they can better understand what we do, the process, and the time involved and plan projects accordingly.
Saturday Dec 30, 2023
Episode 361: Crowdfunding in 2023
Saturday Dec 30, 2023
Saturday Dec 30, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Nicole Amato
Join Kickstarter's Games Outreach Lead, Nicole Amato, as they discuss best practices for running a crowdfunding campaign. There will also be plenty of time for a Q&A for any questions you might have.
Saturday Dec 23, 2023
Episode 360: How to Run a Great Playtest
Saturday Dec 23, 2023
Saturday Dec 23, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Melissa Lewis-Gentry and Curt Covert.
Receiving feedback is hard. Running a successful playtest is even more complicated. Our experts will share their tools for getting the most out of a playtesting table.
Saturday Dec 16, 2023
Episode 359: How to be a Great Playtester
Saturday Dec 16, 2023
Saturday Dec 16, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Kat Millar and Curt Covert
Giving good feedback is a skill. Come learn more about how to provide feedback to game designers in useful, productive ways.
Sunday Nov 19, 2023
Episode 358: Ethical AI Usage?
Sunday Nov 19, 2023
Sunday Nov 19, 2023
Presented by Jason Pitre, Ash Kreider, Vivian Young, Eric Whalen, Tristan Zimmerman
AI is a hot topic. Authors are suing over their content being used to "train" AI without their consent. Platforms and publishers are taking hard anti-AI positions. Or coming out publicly to declare that they are using AI and nobody can stop them. People who want to use AI for idea generation or to simplify and automate boring tasks are at odds with peers who maintain that there is no ethical way to use AI. We're going to start by defining "AI" and then we'll have a respectful, thoughtful conversation on the topic.
Saturday Nov 11, 2023
Episode 357: Spinning Relationship Webs
Saturday Nov 11, 2023
Saturday Nov 11, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia 2023
Presented by Jason Pitre, Jenn Adcock, Brennan Taylor, Olivia Montoya
Larpwrights and tabletop game designers have long relied on the power of complex relationship webs to drive dramatic play. Crafting effective characters and their interconnections allows for a living, breathing, and often conflicted world. The panel speakers will share best practices and techniques for designing these webs.
Wednesday Nov 08, 2023
Episode 356: Challenges and Triumphs of Community-Based Game Publishing
Wednesday Nov 08, 2023
Wednesday Nov 08, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia Online 2021
Presented by Jon Cole, Oscar Biffi, Katherine Shane, Misha B, Olivia Montoya, Chiara Locatelli.
Some small game projects are created by an auteur, who controls every aspect of production. These panelists rejected that approach to create projects working with a team on behalf of their community. How did they balance the community's needs with their ambition? Is it possible to represent a community via anthology at all? Panelists will discuss the nitty gritty processes behind their projects, revealing what worked and what didn't, answering questions, and sharing their hard-won tips for publishing in community.
Saturday Sep 09, 2023
Episode 355: Math Essentials for Designers
Saturday Sep 09, 2023
Saturday Sep 09, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia Online 2021
Presented by Jason Pitre, BJ Recio, Mags Maenad.
Math is often a barrier for analog game designers of all disciplines. This panel is meant to help lower that barrier by teaching you some basic, versatile tools you can use to solve most problems. How do you figure out probabilities of success when rolling dice or drawing cards? What is a bell curve, a mean and a median? How do you figure out combinations and permutation? We are here to give you the tools to thrive.
Saturday Aug 26, 2023
Saturday Aug 26, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia Online 2021
Presented by Menachem Cohen, Ryan Cagle.
Because of the fictional distance between player and character, TTRPGs, even D&D, can be designed and used to facilitate spiritual growth, exploration, and healing. Mechanics, role play, and setting/story also factor into this and GMed, GMful/less, and solo games work in this context. Panelists will discuss how they have designed and used games for spiritual discovery and address theoretical underpinnings of why it works, such as bleed and alibi. There will be time for questions.
Saturday Aug 12, 2023
Episode 353: Bad Design Habits We Love
Saturday Aug 12, 2023
Saturday Aug 12, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia Online 2021
Presented by Jason Morningstar, Tim Hutchings, Jeeyon Shim.
Join us for a rollicking discussion of our worst habits and how being lazy, careless and hard-headed is often the best possible approach to game design. Do you design in layout? Is your playtest process a little shambolic? Do you cut corners and assume the math will all work out? If not, come and be outraged as we take a somewhat jaded approach to conventional wisdom you've heard a thousand times.
Saturday Jul 29, 2023
Episode 352: Problematic and Taboo Topics
Saturday Jul 29, 2023
Saturday Jul 29, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia Online 2021
Presented by Anne Ratchat, Jason Morningstar, and regrets from James Mendez Hodes.
When writing games, a lot of topics are taboo simply because as a community, we are worried how people might take the intentionality of the design to the worst possible places. The issue created by not writing these games, we erase the experience of so many creatives and players who also deserve to have their voices heard. We will be discussing the thought process of how to tackle these controversial topics so that games can be a place for all experiences.
Saturday Jul 15, 2023
Episode 351: Secrets and Powers Larps
Saturday Jul 15, 2023
Saturday Jul 15, 2023
Recorded at Metatopia Online 2021
Presented by Olivia Montoya, Acata Felton.
In some circles, Secrets and Powers LARPs are dismissed as outdated or "too obscure." Our panelists flatly reject this mindset, and invite you to join them for a discussion about what Secrets and Powers games have to offer. Come learn more about this specific type of LARP, which has a focus on pre-written characters, hidden information and roles, and ability mechanics. Learn about why secrets and powers games are cool, get a crash course on how to write and GM them in the modern day, and consider how to make a better future for communities that run them.